Book | slowcatchupkuan - Part 2

Posts Tagged With 'book'

5

Jakarta Undercover Bares It All

 
The book i was looking for was not available at Borders Bejaya Time Square, so i picked this up instead. With stories on seedy red-light districts, underground club circuit, sashimi sex… don’t blame me for being curious!
 

Jakarta Undecover by Moammar Emka features many stories about the unlimited sexual services (from sashimi sex to nude casinos) available in Jakarta, the capital of the world’s largest Muslim country. However, the book which was supposed to have taken Indonesia by storm and sold a whopping 200,000 copies was really errr… unexceptional.

The scenes depicted in the book were dull and each story sounded similar from start to finish. Starting of with the author gaining access via his network of social contacts to exclusive nude parties and sex-for-hire clubs for only the rich and famous and ending with the too-good-to-be-true author declining sexual favors, dignity intact. To be fair, this book was translated to English being the original written in Indonesian language, so the original one might be in a better taste.

Most scenarios were of no surprise coz it does not just happens in Jakarta but in almost every red district around the world. *We’re in great danger! Overly-horny people are everywhere! The interesting part is in this densely Muslim populated part of the world there were even sex-for-sale in chauffeured driven SUVs where customers get to choose the brand of kick-ass luxury cars they prefer. *Sex On Wheels!! Woo Hoo!!

In all, its just a series of mediocre stories. While reading it, I was distracted and more interested watching a middle-aged Australian couple sitting beside me, enjoying Night Fever by Bee Gees while pretending to be a drummer and keyboardist on invisible drum and keyboard set while their son did some karate moves.

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Found out later that there was a Indonesian movie adapted from this book under the same title. Unfortunately this movie was banned in Malaysia *18SX ma!, coz i think it’ll be way better than the book. Check this out.
 


 
 

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Life Is But A Breath

 
It’s Hari Raya and it’s to be a festive and happy day but somehow i felt compelled to share this.
 

dokf
Ground moving memoir
 

EatAllYouCanShung bought this book in Siem Reap. I was done reading it in 2-3 days. My point is that once i started reading it i couldn’t stop. I almost… ok ok i admit i wept on some of the pages. One of the best book i’ve read since ages.

What was actually going on in the minds of those who killed so many? What gave them the right to end another person’s life? Is there no compassion? What were the reasons for the killings that almost wipe out the country? What hope helped those who survived to survive back then? Those were the questions i kept on asking myself after reading the book…

‘Daughter of the Killing Fields’ is a must read for everyone especially now where most things are of convenience, most things are taken for granted and most of all, where humanity and survival is almost at lost.

Theary C. Seng (the author) takes us to the journey back to Cambodia during the height of Khmer Rouge regime where she was just a 3 year old girl and where she learnt life is just a breath. Her detail description of the suffering and cruelty the people of Cambodia had endured when the country was forcefully stripped back to year zero was soul moving.

She was just a child when her dad was taken to be killed… then her mom also murdered… she was enslaved in a labor camp with no future or hope in mind… eye witnessed a woman being tortured (her skull was compressed between a coconut-cracker while she was tied-up alive) and eventually murdered by members of the regime (eventually her skull burst open)… eye witnessed other massive killings… forced to walked across valley of landmines *sigh… the horror went on and on and on…

Yet she and few family members survived. Now she is a Khmer-American lawyer. If i’m not mistaken she is also one of the jury to be on stand for the recent arrest of a Khmer Rouge leader waiting to be trialed for the genocide.

This is a true memoir of a survivor. Get a hold of the book… Kinokuniya doesn’t have it though…
 
 

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